Saturday, February 28, 2009

most of my sporting heroes and memories are from the 80s and are vividly imprinted.one image which is scorched and branded is the 'rarest of rare' sight of gavaskar heaving chatfield over midwicket for in the 1987 cricket world cup at nagpur.it was highly uncharacteristic as gavaskar was THE defensive expert and chatfield was THE stingiest bowler.

If you go by what you read of him, the personality might not be the same either. He was a man of economy - of run-up, of action, of words. He was the man who once got Viv Richards out caught down leg and told Ian Smith, the keeper, "That should have gone for four." That's what you read.Chatfield is a funny man with faraway eyes. With long pauses when he speaks. Is idiosyncratic. Makes you laugh when he talks about his debut Test. Except that he almost died during it. Thirty-four years and two days ago; after a bouncer from Peter Lever struck him in the head.

Was it difficult mentally to come back? "No, it wasn't difficult. Just carried on as if nothing had happened… I got a helmet."

and certainly a lesson for me in attaining contentment and satisfaction with what we have.